House of Commons Hansard #99 of the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was spending.
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I have been having trouble with my technology.
My Wickr Pro showed both votes being accepted as yes, but I understand that only one was accepted and shown in the House. I would appreciate it if the House would accept my second vote as yes.
The Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota
Although I thought we could get around it for a technical difficulty, I am being advised we will have to get unanimous consent.
All those opposed to the hon. member moving the motion will please say nay. Hearing none, it is agreed.
The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay. Hearing none, the motion is carried.
To the hon. member for Edmonton West, both of your votes have been accepted as yea.
The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Speaker, on March 10, Bill C-216, an act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act with regard to supply management, was referred to the Standing Committee on International Trade pursuant to an order of reference from the House.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the bill has still not been studied as ordered by this House on March 10. According to House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, Bosc and Gagnon note on page 1003, “When a bill is referred to a committee, the bill itself constitutes the order of reference.”
With respect to private members' bills, Standing Order 97.1 provides that the committee to which such a bill has been referred has 60 sitting days from the date of the order of reference to complete its study and report the bill to the House. However, the schedule dated May 3 for the work of the Standing Committee on International Trade, as proposed by the chair herself, calls for a clause-by-clause study of Bill C-216 on June 7, almost three months after the March 10 order of reference.
I believe it is worth noting that this same schedule proposes seven committee meetings, all prior to June 7, to conduct the business that the committee itself adopted.
I maintain that orders of reference issued by the House must take precedence over work initiated by the committee itself.
On this issue, I refer you to page 1058 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, on which the authors report Speaker Milliken's remarks in debate in 2002: on November 21, on pages 1738 to 1740; on November 25, on pages 1841 and 1842; on November 26, on pages 1912 and 1913; on November 27, on pages 1949 to 1950.
According to Speaker Milliken, the freedoms that committees have to organize their work as they see fit are not total or absolute. Speaker Milliken stated, “First, it is useful to bear in mind that committees are creatures of the House”.On page 1058 of Bosc and Gagnon's House of Commons Procedure and Practice, in reference to page 230 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, it is stated that:
...[committees] have no independent existence and are not permitted to take action unless they have been authorized or empowered to do so by the House.
The freedom committees have is, in fact, a freedom limited on two levels. First, committees are free to organize their proceedings as they see fit provided that their studies and the motions and reports they adopt comply with the orders of reference and instructions issued by the House. Second, committees may adopt procedural rules to govern their proceedings, but only to the extent the House does not prescribe anything specific. At all times, directives from procedural sources higher than parliamentary committees...take precedence over any rules a committee may adopt.
By that logic, all studies of bills, including Bill C-216, must take precedence over the studies that the committee has decided to undertake, since the bill is considered an official order of reference from the House.
The House already spoken on this issue as part of its debate on the adoption of Standing Order 97.1. I am referring to the debate starting on page 9469 of the Debates of April 8, 1997.
Many hon. members at the time were in favour of Recommendation No. 4 made by the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business in its report of October 31, 1996, following a study carried out pursuant to an order of the House on House business that is votable.
Thus, I would like to remind the House that, when a bill is tabled before it, whether it is a government bill or not, it belongs to the House, and the committee to which it is referred must give priority to studying it, as it is an order from the House.
Unfortunately, in the case before us, Bill C-216 does not seem to have generated the interest it deserves as an order of reference, since the studies undertaken by the Standing Committee on International Trade on its own initiative were given priority, in spite of the order of reference for Bill C-216 dated March 10.
I refer you to the schedule dated May 3 provided to committee members by its chair. On May 3, 7, 10 and 14, witnesses testified for the committee study on Canadian exportation of green, clean and low-carbon technologies.
On May 28, the committee is scheduled to hear from witnesses and officials from the management and consular office and from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada for the study on Canada's international trade and investment policy pursuant to the motion adopted on April 30, 2021, more than 40 days after Bill C-216 was referred to the committee.
On May 31, the committee will begin its consideration of the draft report on the reform of the World Trade Organization, or WTO, and investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS.
On June 4, the committee will study the draft report on the WTO reform, and the meeting will be held in camera.
Members will all agree that the agenda of the committee, which plans to begin studying Bill C-216 on June 7, nearly three months after the date of the order of reference from the House, shows that the committee has very little political will with regard to the bill. In my opinion, that completely defies the parliamentary principle that a committee, as a subordinate entity of the House, must comply with an order of reference from the House and put the study of bills ahead of its own work.
That is why I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, to rule accordingly and order the Standing Committee on International Trade to immediately begin the study of Bill C-216.
The Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota
I would like to thank the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for his comments. I will come back to the House shortly with a ruling.
I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, Government Orders will be extended by 26 minutes.
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-30, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 19, 2021 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Mr. Speaker, I want to start my speech with a single line: Mr. Speaker, I told you so.
I mean no disrespect, but about a month ago, in mid-April, I said that I would not be surprised if Bill C-14 would not go through the other place by the time we got our hands on this 2021-22 budget. Obviously, I was right. To make it even better, Bill C-14 has not been returned to us and it has been a month since I made that prediction. However, I am not here to speak to Bill C-14.
I am here to speak to another bill. It would spend a lot of money. It would massively increase our national debt and it would not do a whole lot to help Canadians. I am going to be speaking to Bill C-30 because, like I said, this budget would spend a lot of money: $154.7 billion. Even if Bill Gates were to liquidate his entire net worth, that still would not be enough to cover the bill for this. I want to talk about all of this money.
If my colleagues here would think back to last year, when this finance minister started her current portfolio, she was very eager to bring Canada's fiscal firepower to bear if September's throne speech is to be believed. However, there is a bit of a problem with that. This is not Hollywood. We can run out of ammo. Our barrels can overheat. We need some way to not burn through all this firepower too fast or, in other terms, we need some sort of fiscal anchor.
Why do we need a fiscal anchor? Fiscal anchors serve as notional ceilings or caps to the levels of public spending, deficits and debt that governments are prepared to reach in their fiscal policy. They serve many purposes: one, retaining the confidence of lenders and global markets, like credit access and favourable rates; two, establishing a positive investment climate for businesses; and, three, providing a measure of fiscal discipline inside government. If the finance minister does not have one, it becomes very difficult for her to put any sort of constraints on her colleagues in cabinet and caucus, and ensure that the government has the ability to respond to future economic shocks and unforeseen crises.
Before COVID-19, the current government's fiscal anchor was to decrease the debt-to-GDP ratio. That anchor has disappeared. Now the budget has one, a vague, pretty useless one. Great, they are committed to reducing the debt, but the fiscal anchor is supposed to be a prudent, specific debt target, not “we will lower it over the medium term”. Fiscal anchors need to be a target that people can use to hold the government to account with no vague statements.
It is clear that this budget does not have a fiscal anchor. It is clear that this is just written in there to hide the Liberals' lack of future planning. What kinds of fiscal anchors could the government have used? I am not talking about that vague, literally, one line that is in the budget.
The first one is the debt-to-GDP ratio. This is what the Liberals would clearly claim they have got right now, but, again, they need targets and accountability, not vague statements and no accountability. A good example would be keeping the debt-to-GDP ratio under 30%. Any of my colleagues here may remember that as Bill Morneau's favourite target. The so-called anchor in the budget says it wants to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, but it does not provide a goal or a target. Therefore, when debt to GDP is at nearly 50%, a reduction is pretty easy to do, but whether the reduction is effective is another matter.
Another anchor the government could be using is something like the deficit-to-GDP ratio. Again, they have a one-off section about this one, simply saying that the government will reduce COVID spending. Great, but what about other spending? This budget introduces a lot of spending, permanent spending, including stuff like made-in-Ottawa child care programs and made-in-Ottawa pharmacare. This is a lot of new permanent program spending, and these are just small drops in the bucket.
The PBO found that the purported growth spending in the budget would only produce a fraction of the government growth that the government said it would. Therefore, the PBO found that with 1% growth on 74,000 jobs, $100 billion would result in over $1 million per job.
If keeping the deficit-to-GDP ratio down is one of this budget’s fiscal anchors, why would the government spend so much money frivolously? In all honesty, had I asked that in question period, I would have received the government's famous non-answer, which is disappointing.
Since we both know that it will not answer, I will tell the House what the real reason is that the federal government wants to spend this avalanche of cash. It is an election budget. That is why there is a lot of growth funding that would not cause growth. There are no productivity measures, and there is nothing to address Canada’s uncompetitive regulatory regime. It is just a lot of money for programs that look good in a nice, red-covered election platform with a big L on the front of it.
What really, deeply worries me is that the government does not seem to care about what all of this purposeless spending will cause. It is not just from this budget, but all of the previous ones too. The government has spent more than all previous prime ministers in the history of Canada combined. At this point, the government is spending so much that our grandkids, if not our great-grandkids, will still be paying it off. It is like taking out a credit card in their names, maxing it out, and leaving it for them to deal with.
As with actual credit cards, the interest rate is critical to this. I know that the minister would say, “Oh, it’s fine, the interest rate is low so we can borrow easily,” a quote from the minister, but again, our national debt is like a credit card. If there is even a one-percentage-point jump in the interest rate, that is another $10 billion per year in debt-servicing costs. Just like with credit cards, the interest can go up if we do not pay down our debts.
What if another massive crisis comes up, and we end up spending another few hundred billion dollars? Our creditors might start wanting us to pay the money back, and it will be tougher for that future government if it needs to borrow money during that crisis.
We also have to consider inflation. What if inflation goes up in the future? Right now, the Bank of Canada has the inflation rate at 2.2%. I know they like it around 2%, but what if the inflation rate keeps increasing? If we keep injecting all this money into the economy, it could cause inflation to spike.
Consider if inflation rose to 5%. Everything would cost more, which is a normal practice, and the value of our currency would drop by 5% year after year. That might not sound like much, but it would add up if it went on like that for a decade.
I am sure all of us who are old enough to remember the 80s and 90s will remember that it was not pretty stuff. Most of us are only a decade or so out from retirement and we will all get good pensions, but not all Canadians will.
My kids are in their early twenties, and I know a lot of our colleagues have kids who are younger than that. Do we really want to leave this fiscal mess in their laps, or in our grandchildren's laps? I know that I do not.
Our legacy should be having rebuilt Canada with a strong, competitive economy that will be there for decades to come, not spending our money for no purpose other than to help the government win an election. We need to spend within our means, not outside of our means, our kids' means and our grandkids' means.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, the member is right. Over the last number of months, the Government of Canada has spent a great deal of money, supporting programs such as CERB for nine million people, the wage subsidy program and the rent subsidy program. It has supported seniors and people with disabilities through one-time payments, provided hundreds of millions toward non-profit organizations, and so forth.
My understanding is that the Conservative Party of Canada supported the spending of those billions of dollars. Is the Conservative Party now reversing its position on the many worthwhile expenditures we made to support Canadians through the pandemic, and is it now saying that we should not have spent that money?
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has been around long enough to know that we are not changing our minds. The government is changing its promises. The Prime Minister promised to balance the budget before 2015. That is what the Liberals are changing. They are walking away from what they believe in. Remember the Paul Martin era? They are walking out of this. They do not believe in balancing the budget anymore or being fiscally responsible. They want to borrow money and buy out elections. That is what the current government is focusing on. It can hide behind the programs, the support and all of that, which is fine. We agreed to the support because we stand by Canadians all the way, but the government is changing what has been done historically, which is to be fiscally responsible and balance the budget. That is what the government is doing, which is concerning and scary.
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his intervention. Of course he is my neighbour in Edmonton, so it is nice to see him virtually since we cannot see each other face to face.
He spoke a bit about the plan the Liberals have. I have concerns as well that the government does not have a good plan going forward. I wonder if he feels the federal government has a bit of a role to play to ensure we finish this race. This has been a very difficult year. It has been very hard on small businesses in Edmonton, as he knows. I think if we pull out those supports for individuals and businesses now, we risk losing the race because we stopped before the end.
How does he feel about the government stopping its giving $500 per week to Canadians who are on CERB? Would he support continuing to make sure Canadians can get through this pandemic?
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Edmonton Strathcona. Of course, it is good to see her.
My speech was focused on the fiscal anchors and what we can do to make sure we do not pile on debt with unnecessary spending. I was not talking about necessary spending. That is very clear. I was talking about unnecessary spending and the crazy promises that keep piling up. Where is the answer? Where is the government on telling Canadians what it is going to do with this debt? How long can we continue spending?
We have to deal with the pandemic and of course with all of the mistakes the government has made, such as not being able to provide vaccines on time or test kits so we could get out of this as soon as possible. What we are talking about is why the government is not being responsible with how much debt it is bringing to Canadians, what we are going to do with it and how we will pay for it generation after generation.
Chris Lewis Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, through you to my hon. colleague, something I have been talking about and worrying about is how someone in the next generation is going to be able to start a family, have a car and afford a house.
What could have been done differently in this budget to look to the future, for people to start families and look toward a new Canada?
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Mr. Speaker, I focused a lot on the fiscal anchors. I focused on the government being responsible in order to be able to calculate and tell Canadians the true story. Where we are going? The budget that was introduced is a suicidal route toward a non-end. It is something somewhere that nobody understands, including Canadians, which is very scary. The fiscal anchors are the answer, and they do not exist in this budget.
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Mr. Speaker, this past year has been challenging for all Canadians. Today it is my honour to represent Brampton South to speak in support of Bill C-30, the budget 2021 implementation act. In budget 2021, the priority is to support Canadians through the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and create more jobs and prosperity for all Canadians across the country.
This budget outlines the many challenges Canadians have faced throughout the past year and recognizes that Canadians need support in order to recover financially from the pandemic. As more people are eligible to get vaccinated, businesses are still in need of support to make it through this third wave of the pandemic. That is why this government is extending business and income support initiatives through to the fall.
I would like to focus on some key areas for my community. During the series of pre-budget consultations, I met with many businesses and many seniors from Brampton, including organizations such as CARP, the International Seniors Club, Young at Heart Seniors and others. With budget 2021, Brampton seniors will not be left behind. Many seniors find it difficult to adjust their financial situation after retirement, especially in the pandemic.
This is why the government is providing a one-time payment of $500 this summer to those aged 75 years and older as of June 2022. It is essential aid for seniors who have been impacted by COVID-19. Old age security benefits will also be increased by 10% for seniors over 75, and will be adjusted annually for inflation. All of these actions proposed in budget 2021 will help our seniors live more independent lives and have a dignified retirement.
One of my constituents, Myrna Adams, who is a member of our local CARP chapter, requested that more action be taken to prevent elder abuse in Canada. I am happy to report to my constituents, and to all Canadians watching, that budget 2021 will provide funding for the Public Health Agency of Canada to design and deliver interventions that prevent family violence, including elder abuse. Budget 2021 was designed with the feedback of many seniors from Brampton and across Canada. This pandemic has shown us just how important it is to protect our loved ones and community members.
Some of the people hardest hit by COVID-19 are women, especially low-income women. More than 16,000 women have left the workforce, while more than 91,000 men have re-entered. In order to recover from this pandemic, we need women in the workforce.
Access to affordable child care has been a top priority in my riding of Brampton South this past year. With school closures and many parents still needing to go to work, finding affordable child care for their children has been a struggle. In urban centres such as Brampton, many young families are struggling with increases in the cost of living, including child care. This is not only a social issue but also an economic problem. If parents are unable to work because they cannot afford care for their children, they lose out on their full potential for contributing to the economy.
Proposed in budget 2021 are supports for parents and more affordable options when it comes to child care. The proposed Canada-wide early learning and child care system will help to ensure that all families, no matter their socio-economic background, have access to child care across the country and will increase women’s participation in the workforce.
Not only do children need access to high quality education and affordable care systems, but so do our youth. When the pandemic hit last year, young Canadians were among the hardest hit demographics, experiencing more job loss than any other age group. The mental well-being of youth has been an issue that my riding has taken very seriously over the past year. Being isolated from their peers, attending online school and experiencing the stress of finding summer jobs have affected young people greatly.
In budget 2021, the federal government is investing $5.7 billion over the next five years to help youth by creating more job opportunities and providing them with the ability to finish and further their education. The government's overwhelming support for young Canadians has been apparent over the last year: $7.4 billion was spent on youth when COVID-19 hit Canada last year to help young Canadians through this difficult time as well as create more opportunities for them to get meaningful work experience while supporting small businesses.
Making education a little more affordable is a pillar of this budget. Waiving interest on student loans for another year is giving students an opportunity to save money and not worry about making additional payments. Summer employment opportunities have been increased, with 75,000 job placements in 2022-23 through the Canada summer jobs program.
In my riding, over 600 young Canadians will be employed through Canada summer jobs and my riding will benefit with over $2.7 million. This will ensure that students are securing job opportunities for the summer and learning important skills and gaining work experience. Students and young Canadians will benefit from the new Canada recovery hiring program. By offering small businesses the ability to hire more people faster, this in turn will help young Canadians looking for summer jobs.
Our government recognizes infrastructure investments create good jobs and build healthy communities. It is the right time to start investing in Canadian communities for the economy to recover from this pandemic.
I know that in the coming years, my community will benefit from some recent infrastructure investments the government has made. This includes over half a million dollars to create a youth hub at the South Fletcher's Sportsplex; upgrading The Rose theatre and making it more accessible, with a grant of over $2 million; $35 million in safe restart funding to support the city of Brampton; a grant of $38 million for flood mitigation that will allow us to protect and transform our downtown Brampton and build the city’s transformative Riverwalk project; more transit funding like we saw last summer, where the federal government invested millions of dollars to upgrade Brampton’s transit system; and the largest federal housing investment ever made in Peel Region of $276 million, which will create 2,200 much needed affordable housing units.
These are just some of the most recent investments from our federal government. I know there is more coming in the budget and Bramptonians look forward to seeing their fair share of investments.
Finally, I would like to thank the government for using the budget to recognize that 2021 is the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin in Canada, with a commitment to establish a national framework for diabetes. Members of the House know I have long advocated for this to help the 11 million Canadians living with diabetes and pre-diabetes. With a focused strategy, we can help them all and perhaps find our way to a cure.
Brampton is a community of essential workers. Many of my constituents work in health care, manufacturing, food processing, distribution, transportation and other essential industries. I extend my thanks to all of them for the hard work they have continued to do over the last year. Throughout the pandemic, they had to continue going to work to keep our supply chain running so the rest of us could stay safe.
I thank all essential workers in Brampton and across Canada who have had to work in essential roles. The Government of Canada has their backs. This bill is essential to restarting the economy and ensuring that no Canadian is left behind. Since the start of the pandemic, it has been this government’s priority to protect the health and safety of all Canadians, help businesses endure COVID-19 restrictions and ensure we have a plan in place for a strong economic recovery. This bill would do just that.
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech.
She began her speech by talking about seniors and said she was taking into account comments she had heard from those around her about seniors.
Let us look at what is being said in Quebec. People think it is unacceptable to create two classes of seniors, namely young seniors aged 65 to 75, and older seniors. Everyone finds that unacceptable.
Why does the member's government refuse to take into account what is being said elsewhere in the country?
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her passion for seniors. Our government values the contributions that seniors have made and continue to make to our communities. We have taken action to combat poverty, including poverty among seniors.
We are helping the seniors who need it most, those over 75, who may have taken some time to adjust their spending in retirement and have discovered they need extra support.
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, surely the member for Brampton South is not suggesting that the paltry $500 one-time payment is lifting those seniors out of poverty. It is to the contrary.
We know that for-profit long-term care facilities like Extendicare and Sienna received $157 million in support and paid out $74 million in dividends. The previous speaker talked about supporting frontline workers, yet thousands of seniors have died in inhumane conditions at LTC facilities.
Despite the evidence that more people have died in private long-term care facilities, the government continues to protect its profits. Could the member explain why the government is putting the profits of for-profit care providers ahead of the quality of care for the seniors in her riding of Brampton South?
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Mr. Speaker, for long-term care, our government is there to help seniors. Our policies are also showing positive results as 25% fewer seniors live in poverty than when we took office in 2015. That is a direct result of the good work our government has undertaken, including restoring the age of eligibility for OAS and GIS to 65 years, and increasing the GIS for the most vulnerable single seniors.
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Mr. Speaker, the speaker talked a bit about her home riding and a lot about the constituents in her riding, particularly children. What she did not expand upon was the huge impact that the budget will have on those children and their grandchildren. The rationale to do this is because the interest rates are low. However, the one thing we do know is that interest rates are going to go up. That is going to have a huge impact on her constituents, particularly those who are buying homes now, which are escalating through the roof.
How does this budget help those children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Who is going to pay that debt back?
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned child care. The status of women committee has been studying issues to do with the effects of the pandemic on women and children.
When it comes to the fiscal sustainability of our budget, it is important for Canadians to know that the Government of Canada supported over 9 million Canadians through CERB, as an example, but there have been many other supports. A week after we delivered the budget, S&P Global reaffirmed Canada's AAA rating, saying that it expected the Canadian economy would post a strong recovery.
The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton
Before resuming debate, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vancouver East, Public Safety; the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Canadian Heritage; and the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Foreign Affairs.
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Mr. Speaker, for those following the debate on this budget implementation act, I will provide the necessary context for how we ended up with the most expensive federal budget in our lifetime.
It is imperative that we as legislators look at the full picture and to the future when debating a bill like this. Right now in Canada there are countless families and businesses on the brink of losing everything they have. The recent job numbers are horrendous, as our economy shed another 207,000 positions and our unemployment rate is 8.1%. These are not just numbers and statistics; they are people's livelihoods and careers. Many of these jobs were in the service and retail industry. These workers now find themselves without a pay cheque and some fear their jobs will never come back.
Every single constituency has been hit hard. All we have to do is look at the empty storefronts and vacant buildings to understand the severity of the economic and health crisis our country is facing.
We are now in the third wave and my province of Manitoba is back in lockdown. We are not unique as every province is in a race to stop the spread of COVID variants. While other nations have done a tremendous job of procuring enough vaccines for the first quarter of 2021, which helped them to mitigate against the third wave, we, in Canada, have not been so fortunate. We find ourselves in this terrible position due to a series of failures.
For my Liberal colleagues who might not take my word, I only need to point to the recent Auditor General's report that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the government was woefully unprepared for the pandemic. My Liberal colleagues could also review the speech given by the member for Kingston and the Islands when he admitted, “if vaccines came sooner we probably would not be standing in this place right now,” which was in response to the emergency debate that took place just last week. For once in my parliamentary career I can say that I agree with my hon. Liberal colleague.
I do not plan on litigating everything that has happened to date. For the purposes of this debate, it must be said that if we were able to procure enough vaccines for the first quarter of 2021, we would be in a far better position than we find ourselves today. If the government had moved quickly to shutdown flights from countries, where the variants are out of control, it would certainly have helped limit the spread of these variants. Not only has those failures cost people's lives, but it has resulted in prolonging the pandemic.
There is a direct correlation between those failures and their direct impact on our economy and the nation's finances. Within this omnibus bill, the government has acknowledged that the pandemic will continue for quite some time.
It is clear that the government needs to extend the programs on which many businesses and companies are relying, as either their doors are now locked or they are operating with very limited capacity. Just because the doors are closed, though, does not mean the bills do not continue to pile up. To no fault of their own, businesses and their employees are paying the price of the federal government's failure of not procuring enough vaccines for the first quarter of 2021 and for failing to keep the variants out of our country, and certainly for the lack of distribution of the same.
The last thing people want to do is to continue to apply for more financial support, but they do not have a choice. They cannot afford to go through another lockdown and they need to pay their bills. Therefore, I support those very specific clauses in the legislation to extend these programs. In fact, there are other specific measures I support, but in a bill as lengthy as this one, there are bound to be a few things that every member can get behind.
The road ahead of us is paved with uncertainties and risks, so we are already seeing the unintended consequences of the government's policies. The first risk is the very real threat of inflation. The Bank of Canada recently sent out a warning to investors that rising inflation numbers could result in it hiking the interest rate. If we couple that with the recent report that close to half of Canadians are $200 or less away from not being able to cover their bills and debt payments at the end of each month, that should keep every member of Parliament up at night.
If we look at the skyrocketing housing prices, we are witnessing in real time the dream of home ownership slipping away. I shudder at the thought of what is going to happen to those who will have to remortgage their homes at a much higher interest rate.
The second threat is the growing size of our country's debt and the cost to service that debt, as was mentioned by many of my colleagues. I know that every government must grapple with making choices and setting priorities, but I fear there are some who cannot see the forest for the trees. In a perfect world, every government has the financial capacity to carry out its mandate, but we do not live in that utopia where everything can get funded all at once. The size of this deficit makes one wonder who got left out.
Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer issued his analysis of the budget. He projects that the ratio of federal debt to gross domestic product will hit 52.1% this year and remain well above the pre-pandemic level of 31.2% for quite some time. In the report, there was another startling number that deserves repeating. The long-term projections presented in the budget show the federal debt-to-GDP ratio remaining above its pre-pandemic level through to the year 2055. That is a staggering 34 years from now. I doubt that I will witness the momentous occasion when the Government of Canada returns to pre-pandemic debt numbers, but my grandchildren and their families will most certainly be stuck with the bill, and that bill right now is that the average Canadian family owes over $77,000 in federal debt.
Any time a government goes this far into debt, it is completely irresponsible to not have a road map or a plan to get its fiscal house back in order. The interest payments alone on our debt are expected to hit almost $40 billion a year in the next few years. For my Liberal colleagues who do not share the same hesitations about their spendthrift ways, I will quote Paul Martin, who was a long-serving Liberal finance minister. He said, “The debt and the deficit are not inventions of ideology. They are facts of arithmetic. The quicksand of compound interest is real.” He said those words over 20 years ago and they still ring true. It would seem that modern monetary theory has found a receptive audience within the government.
I want to reference Jonathan Hartley, an economics researcher, who recently wrote about the pitfalls of this new economic model being touted by the left-of-centre politicians. He said, “The defining feature of [modern monetary theory]—and what distinguishes it from [other] economic theories—is its insistence that, so long as a government's debt is denominated in its own currency, there is no upper limit on the state's monetary borrowing.” He went on to say that under this theory “public debt is irrelevant”. He did not say that, but he referred to it as part of that theory. He further stated, “a country's central bank can always avoid default by printing more money.”
We know that there are real risks to this approach, and there are countless examples of debt monetization leading to out-of-control inflation. The Bank of Canada must adjust to the reality that this cannot go on forever. The Bank of Canada has been buying a minimum of $4 billion in government bonds every week, accumulating more than $250 billion of the securities over the past year. As reported, its share of the holdings of the outstanding bond market continues to grow, and it currently owns more than 35% of the total marketed outstanding Government of Canada debt. We should all be watching the Bank of Canada's actions and future decisions.
I do not say these things to cause alarm, but rather as someone who witnessed the crushing interest rate hikes and inflation in previous decades. I fully understand the necessity to help get our economy back on track and those suffering. However, we must quickly turn our attention to getting our finances under control. As parliamentary committees gear up to study the various parts of this omnibus bill, Canadians are counting on all of us to get this right, so we must ensure that every dollar being spent will, in fact, grow our economy and improve the lives of those we represent.
Larry Bagnell LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages (Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency)
Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I are both on the international committee representing the Arctic nations together. We have a great working relationship, and I always appreciate hearing from him. We work very well together.
He started out by explaining that many businesses and individuals are on the verge of bankruptcy, so I assume he supports the items in the budget. He mentioned that he supports the extension of the wage subsidy, the rent subsidy, the lockdown subsidy and the RRRF. I assume he also supports the extension of the flexible access to EI for another year and the Canada recovery benefit to September 25, adding another 12 weeks. Then there are brand new programs on top of these extensions: $1 billion for tourism, $700 million to support business financing, improving the Canada small business financing program and enhancing the low-income workers benefit to help all the people in these dire situations.
Is there any one of those items that the member does not support?
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. I did say in my speech that I support those items. In fact, as a Conservative Party, we helped the government make sure there was more inclusion in the programs he mentioned: the wage subsidy, the rent subsidy, the areas of CERB when it was active. We are supportive of the employment insurance program going on now.
We know there are other sectors of our society that will need to be kick-started and helped to get back into it. He mentioned tourism as being one of those sectors, which I know is very important in his region, and the infrastructure spending as well. The problem we have with the infrastructure spending is that there has not been a lot of it coming out the door. There have been lots of announcements, but we need to make sure we get into activity. There are many projects in many areas of Canada that need to go forward. We need to look carefully at the programs to see how we can do that.
A big part of it, which was mentioned by some of my colleagues, is that there are many things in this budget. As I said, hardly anybody was left out of it. It certainly looks like an election budget.
My only concern—
The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton
I must interrupt the hon. member to move on to other questions.
The hon. member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I think he would agree that it is hard to listen to the Liberals say that we would have ended up in a recession after the pandemic and that they needed to invest a hundred billion dollars.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer believes that $69 billion would have been enough to stimulate the economy. He is also of the opinion that the GDP will increase by 1% after the pandemic and that roughly 70,000 jobs will be created. The Liberals, however, think the GDP will increase by 2% and more than 300,000 jobs will be created.
What does my colleague think of the Liberals' statements, what is presented in the budget and the Parliamentary Budget Officer's projections?